Commencement

Rufus M. Friday joined the Tri-City Herald in February 2005 as the seventh president and publisher in its 61 year history.  Rufus is a 25-year newspaper veteran, a North Carolina native and graduate from North Carolina State University. 

He began his newspaper career at the Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer in 1984.  In 1992, he began an 11-year span with the (pronounced “guh-net”) Gannett Company (parent company of USA Today) directing circulation divisions for daily newspapers in Tennessee, Illinois, Alabama and North Carolina. 

Education has been a centerpiece of Friday’s involvement in the communities that he has worked in.  In North Carolina, he served as a member of the Raleigh, N.C. -based Wake Education Partnership, which is dedicated to improving public schools, and the Triangle Education Advancement Foundation, which raises college scholarship money for public high school student-athletes.  He has also been involved in area YMCA’s Black Achievers Mentoring Programs in Illinois and North Carolina.

In the Tri-Cities, he currently serves on the Washington State University Tri-Cities Advisory Council, the advisory boards for the Mid-Columbia Reading Foundation, and Junior Achievement. 

He is also on the board of directors for the Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC), the United Way, and the Three Rivers Community Roundtable and is co-chair for the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center’s capital campaign.

Rufus is active in newspaper industry associations as a board member for the Allied Daily Newspapers of Washingtonand serves on the American Press Institute’s Advisory Council based in Reston, Virginia as well.

Friday and his wife, Melody, who serves as Program Director for the Benton-Franklin Volunteer Center’s Retired Seniors Volunteer Program, have been married for 26 years and have a 14-year-old daughter, Chanel.